


i do not sleep/i look on the city

by comrade_valerie



Series: I love The Band's Visit in this cafe tonight [12]
Category: The Band's Visit - Yazbek/Moses
Genre: Free Verse, Haled thinking bout things, Sadness lol idk how to tag, The Band's Visit - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22634809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comrade_valerie/pseuds/comrade_valerie
Summary: "Haled sits in a stranger’s apartment, in a foreign country, surrounded by darkness and desert heat and listens to the silence. From another rooftop, somewhere, come the sounds of the of the band practicing, or maybe he’s just imagining it to fill the expanse of quiet."
Series: I love The Band's Visit in this cafe tonight [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1140767
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3





	i do not sleep/i look on the city

**Author's Note:**

> back on my bullshit for my two readers, i love you. PLEASE, if you have ANY requests about this!!!! Please request them.

Heled gets back to the apartment before Tewfiq and Dina return.  
It’s ok, because Dina left a spare key under the mat.  
She told him about it as he left.  
“Thank you,” he said, marveling that she would trust a stranger so much.  
He lets himself in, and searches for the lightswitch.  
The light is as yellow as the streetlight outside.

Haled is unsure what to do here, alone. It is rather early yet, it feels strange to sleep with the two of them still away.

_“I do not sleep, I look on the city…”_

Some people are shouting at each other on the street outside,  
Two women, their tones furious, their words incomprehensible.   
The syllables of Hebrew smash together,   
the ends of the words spilling into the beginnings of the next ones,  
packed with consonants.  
Eventually there’s a final phrase, and the commotion dies.

Haled thinks of Alexandria and the concert,  
and after Pet’Hatikva- the return home.  
_“I am musician,”_ he said to the bouncer in the club earlier, but after Tewfiq’s lecture, he may not be.   
And after coming home, there is his arranged marriage.  
What will become of him?  
Will he become like Dina, looking off to the distance for a better version of his life?   
He sits in a stranger’s apartment, in a foreign country, surrounded by darkness and desert heat and listens to the silence.   
From another rooftop, somewhere, come the sounds of the of the band practicing, or maybe he’s just imagining it to fill the expanse of quiet.

Haled stirs himself, removes his trumpet from the case, and begins to play  
a western melody.  
_"Do you know Chet Baker? My funny Valentine..."_  
Brassy notes float on the still air  
when playing he can think of nothing.

Longing is everywhere in this town:   
in Papi’s eyes and the girl’s as they follow each other around the skating rink,  
the man at the telephone booth,  
his face illuminated in a halo of cold, white light.  
_“Did she call yet?”_  
_“No, but- soon!”_

Haled’s first time in Israel and so far he has only seen a ghost town.  
He gets up and paces around Dina’s living room, for something to do.  
All her books are in Hebrew- obviously.  
On the shelf, there is a small photograph that shows a young woman.  
It is Dina, because the eyes are the same, although not so far away and sad.  
She is in a theater after a performance,  
a coat on over her costume and holding a bunch of flowers and laughing at the camera.  
_“I was a dancer…”_  
What kind of dance? He can’t tell from the photo.

Finally, voices on the stairs, outside the door  
Dina and Tewfiq are speaking, and they both sound somber.  
Haled goes and sits back down before they come in.  
He doesn’t want to seem like he is snooping through her life.  
He means to ask Dina what kind of dancer she was,  
but later, with the events of the evening, he forgets.

The band leaves.  
What a strange little town,  
He feels as if it was a dream.  
Pet'Hatikva is beautiful.  
_“A big city, you feel you live…”_ Dina had said.  
Haled tries.

**Author's Note:**

> No art with this one, that's all folks.


End file.
